Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
Ambrose Bierce

Genius - To know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
Ambrose Bierce

Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
Ambrose Bierce

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose Bierce

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
Ambrose Bierce

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Ambrose Bierce

Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
Ambrose Bierce

Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Ambrose Bierce

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce

In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
Ambrose Bierce

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.
Ambrose Bierce

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
Ambrose Bierce

To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
Ambrose Bierce

Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
Ambrose Bierce

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose Bierce

Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce